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Topic: U.S. Gov. Shutdown and Science (Read 817 times)

Here are website screen shots of parts of agencies involved and the amount of scientific research the United States does that was idle through the shutdown, such as the Department of Agriculture, Center for Disease Control, The US National Library of Medicine, The National Cancer Institute, EPA, NOAA, The National Human Genome Research Institute, The National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, National Institute on Aging, NIH (Mental Health and Medical Services), NIDDK, National Weather Service, National Park Service (had you heard?), U.S. Food and Drug Administration, The Dept. of Energy, The Smithsonian Museums, The US Department of Health and Human Services, US Forest Service, National Science Foundation, Research in Antarctica.

And some still say, what a waste of funds - but which ones can we do without? Many have helped the world for decades. Americans should be much more angry. How naïve, how stupid, the people are that we have elected.

As someone involved with the Antarctic Program, I can tell you just how tragic the government shutdown was for some of the hardworking scientists and teams. Several projects that had been in the planning stages for years were suddenly cancelled, with others that had been ongoing for decades put in serious jeopardy of losing critical data sets.

The primary support contractor, Lockheed Martin, ran out of funds early in October, and had begun to transition the three main U.S. research stations, McMurdo, Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, and Palmer Station, into "caretaker status", essentially leaving a skeleton crew at each location to maintain basic functions. This decision nearly cost 1,000 support workers their seasonal jobs, not to mention the irreparable damage of cancelled grants and projects. Luckily, after the shutdown ended, the "caretaker" decision was reversed, but it is now a mad scramble to prioritize which projects will be allowed to continue their research, as well as to complete the immense logistical preparation and planning involved with each on an already overburdened support staff due to the sequestation cuts that kicked in earlier this year. The weather has also not been kind so far this season, with numerous flight delays and cancellations. It has not been easy so far this season, but things are finally starting to get kicked into gear....hopefully we do not have to do this all over again in January....

The wing nuts don't look at it as "which one to cut or not". They see it all as a waste. That science stuff is a waste. All part of the religious nuts trying to compete for most crazy with the Muslims.

The true scope of the waste is staggering. Setting aside the actual dollars involved, so much research was disrupted as a result of this, some of what was already done will be virtually worthless due to the interruption, completely wasted work and money already spent. The true extent of the damage will never be fully understood, especially apart from the economic factors that will be tabulated and widely discussed. The degree of irresponsibility is shocking.

How much did this set back cures for disease? How many more people will be using the very same medical services that the GOP was trying to keep out of reach? How much more will the system be burdened as a result of a relatively short amount ofdown time? Just one small sector, and the ripples are almost never-ending.

The depth of their betrayal is just sickening. I have no words to express how I feel about these .... congress organisms.

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"Tell people that there's an invisible man in the sky that created the entire universe and the majority believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure." ~George Carlin